BY ROBERT GRANT, DIVERSIFIED PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
More than two thousand of the three thousand cooperatives in New York City are outside Manhattan. The phenomenal rise in housing costs has not spread to Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. One-bedroom apartment sales still average between $30,000 and $90,000. These co-ops may be leveraged with underlying mortgages, taken out to fund capital projects. They face the usual 5% annual increase in real estate taxes and the annual 4.5% increase in water/sewer rates. They often have only one superintendent and perhaps one porter.
A superintendent who has been with a property for a steady period typically receives the following in salary and benefits:
$36,400 base
salary
700. bonus
3,500 vacation pay (5 weeks)
1,400 sick pay (2 weeks)
1,400 holiday or personal day pay (2 weeks)
15,000 housing (based on net: market rental rate of $1200/mo)
1,500 utilities (based on net: estimate $1200/yr bills)
_______
$59,900
Above this, the superintendent receives compensation for private work, free telephone, overtime work and holiday gifts or tips from residents. These extras may average $5,000 per year (gross salary equivalent). And above this, the superintendent receives family medical and dental insurance, pension and life insurance, paid by the cooperative.
The complaint that such an employee is not sharing in the wealth being reaped in by outer borough cooperatives thus seems ludicrous. Outer borough cooperatives, which represent two-thirds of the co-op shareholders in New York City, have not skyrocketed in value. Their budgets are tight, with only small net surpluses for contingencies.
Maybe it is time to segregate the negotiated increases: one level for Manhattan and a reduced level for the forgotten outer boroughs, the "silent tenant-shareholder majority" in the cooperative world.